Records of North Pacific Right Whales along the coasts of
California, Baja, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii
(updated May 26, 2024)
(NOTE - I have changed the layout of this page to put
the post 1955 sightings first and moved the records
prior to 1855 into following sections.)
Records of North Pacific Right
Whales off Washington, Oregon, California, and Baja coasts
1955-2024
There have been only 18 confirmed records of right
whales off California (including two sightings off Baja)
since 1955. Most of the sightings have been of single
animals and most occurred in late winter or spring
(March-May) very close to shore, several by observers on
shore.
- 24 May 2024. One North Pacific Right Whale "was
observed for 20 minutes" milling west of Pt. Reyes,
California over the Cordell Bank National Marine
Sanctuary as reported by ACCESS Oceans on its
Facebook page.
The
observations were made by the Applied California Current
Ecosystem Studies a partnership between Greater
Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries
and Point Blue Conservation Science.
The observations were made onboard the
NOAA Ship Bell M Shimada Two photos are posted
on that Facebook page and the photos and videos have
been sent to NOAA's Marine Mammal Lab in Seattle. More
details will be provided as they are provided.
- 5 March 2023. One North Pacific Right Whale was
seen at 9:47 am close to shore near Pt. Pinos,
Monterey Bay, California by multiple observers on
a Monterey Bay Whale Watch whalewatching cruise. The
whale was heading west. Contact with the whale was lost
after 15 minutes due to sea conditions. This whale was
also seen by crew and passengers on the Princess
Monterey Whalewatch boat that was on a whalewatching
cruise. There are numerous photos taken that clearly
show the animal was a right whale. Of note is that the
whale had dozens of barnacles on its back and lips in
addition to the callosities. The March date and the
presence of coronulid barnacles parallels the sighting
off Half Moon Bay in 1982 listed below.
- 19 April 2022. One North Pacific Right Whale
was seen at around 9:00 am at 37° 06.029 N, 122° 26.003
W) 5.3 miles southwest of Point Ano Nuevo,
California. The whale was spotted by a
recreational fisherman named Jack Gross. The whale was
photographed and a short video taken, now in possession
of NOAA which confirm its identity as a right whale. It
appeared to be feeding by skimming the surface while
swimming. (pers. comm from William
Douros, NOAA)
- 5 May 2017 - Anacapa Island,
Channel Islands, California - east of the
lighthouse (N34'00.675", W119' 19.869" a single whale
was seen by Shelly Johnson on the sailboat Zoarces.
They were able to about 50
photographs, some with the whale lifting its head
out of the water and clearly showing its callosities and
a short video of the whale doing tail throws.
- 14 and 15 April 2017- La Jolla, California. A
single right whale was
photographed on April 14 by a passenger with her
iPhone from a small private plane (Piper Cherokee)
piloted by Chuck Houser. Houser writes " The whale was
at most 1/4 mile offshore roughly west of La Jolla Cove.
It was pointed toward the shore. What I noticed about
this whale was that it wasn't really moving. The
following day a single right whale, presumably the same
animal was filmed at length from the beach at La Jolla
Cove by a beachgoer and a TV news crew. A local TV
station broadcast
the video on air, but the TV commentators
misidentified it as a far more common grey whale that
was migrating north, and only commented on how close to
shore it was. Whale experts did not learn about this
sighting until several days later after the whale had
moved on. Although whale watch operators along the
California coast were alerted the whale was not seen
again.
- 2-14 February 2015 - San Miguel Island, Channel
Islands, California There was a possible
unconfirmed sighting off San Miguel Island in the
Channel Islands. The sighting by Bob DeLong, a NOAA
biologist researching elephant seals, who reported
"seeing a pair of what sound very much like right whales
off San Miguel for the past few days. No photos but
large, black, no dorsal fin, huge black flukes, sounds
like callosities. He saw them from shore but it really
doesn't sound like it could be anything else. His
sighting was reported days afterwards. A subsequent
aerial survey failed to spot any right whales in the
area.
- 16 September 1998 - 1 unconfirmed
"small" right whale in Monterey Bay was reported by
Debbie Shearwater, (Shearwater Journeys). No photos
exist, and other local observers believe this was an
unusual humpback rather than a right whale.
- 27 February 1998 near Cape
San Martin, California. A single right whale
was spotted off the Big Sur Coast, fleeing a pair of
apparently aggressive gray whales in an unusual
interaction observed by Monterey Bay National Marine
Sanctuary officials. Monterey Bay Sanctuary
Superintendent Bill Douros and NOAA Corps. pilot Lt.
Commander Matt Pickett, were aboard the Sanctuary
airplane along the Big Sur Coast near Cape San Martin,
when large splashes appeared in the ocean below them,
near a pod of gray whales. "We looked down and saw a
large black whale being chased by several gray whales,"
Douros said. Pickett, who has flown right whale census
projects off the East Coast, confirmed the sighting.
"There were probably 12 gray whales in an area about a
quarter square mile near the right whale, although only
two were obviously interacting with the right whale. We
saw one group of six gray whales swimming together,
northbound, several hundred yards south of the right
whale," Douros added. For about 15 minutes Douros and
Pickett circled the whales, watching the right whale
veer back and forth, splash and dive repeatedly as it
tried to elude the pursuing gray whales. Eventually the
right whale submerged for an extended period and Douros
and Pickett continued their flight. While the right
whale was swimming northbound, eluding the gray whales,
neither Douros or Pickett were confident that they could
predict the whale's overall direction of travel. "It's
an extraordinary, unprecedented sighting," said Alan
Baldridge, a cetacean expert recently retired from
Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Laboratory, "We've
never heard of aggressive behavior between baleen
whales. We see aggressive interactions between baleen
and toothed whales - such as orcas. But nothing like
this."
- 2 April 1996 1 right whale, estimated
to be 13m in length of undetermined sex, was sighted in
the company of 3 humpback whales off the western coast
of Maui, Hawaii (20°56' N, 156° 46'
W). The right whale appeared to initiate social
interactions with the humpbacks. This is the first
sighting of right whales near Hawaii since 1979. Salden,
D.R. and Mickelsen, J. 1999. Rare sighting of a North
Pacific right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) in
Hawai'i. Pacific Science 53(4):341-345.
- 19 February 1996 15 km off Cabo
San Lucas, Mexico (23° 02' N, 109° 30' W). A
single right whale was seen by D. Gendron. This is only
the third confirmed sighting of a right whale off Baja,
although Scammon suggested they may have been common
there. Gendron, D. Lanham, S., and Carwardine, M. 1999.
North Pacific right whale (Eubalaena
glacialis) sighting South of Baja California.
Aquatic Mammals 25(1):31-34.
- 3 May 1995 off Piedras
Blancas, CA (Rowlett unpublished reported in
Brownell et al. 2001)
- 24 May 1992 off Cape
Elizabeth, Washington (Rowlett et al.
1994, Northwest Naturalist 75: 102-104).
- 24 March 1992 70km SW of the SE tip
of San Clemente Island, CA (Caretta et
al. 1994. Marine Mammal Sci.
10(1):101-105.
- 9 May 1990 one animal 17m, 8 miles N
of Santa Catalina Island,CA (Scarff,
1991).
- 5 February 1988 one animal. La
Jolla, CA (W. Perrin, pers. comm)
- 20 March 1982. one adult 1.5 km off
Pillar Point (Half Moon Bay), CA (Scarff,
J. 1986.)
- 17 April 1981 one 14m animal near Santa
Barbara, CA (Woodhouse & Strickley,
1982).
- 13 September 1974 . 60 km W of Fort
Bragg, CA (NMFS POP)
- 11 March 1965 one 15m animal 12km SW
Punta Abreojos, Baja (Rice & Fiscus
1968)
- 10 May 1963 44 km SSW
Farallon Island (Rice & Fiscus 1968)
- 11 April 1963 . one <9m animal 61
mile SW Pigeon Point, CA (Rice &
Fiscus 1968)
- 13 May 1959 . one 13m animal 16 miles
SW Pt Montara, CA (Rice & Fiscus,
1968)
- 31 March 1955 . one 13m animal off La
Jolla, CA (Gilmore 1956)
Right Whale Sightings off Hawai'i
Early scientific hypothesis about the wintering grounds
for North Pacific suggested that Hawai'i may have been a
wintering ground. However, later more rigorous reviews
have failed to find more than a tiny number of records
from these islands, despite the extensive searching area
since the 1850s. Analysis or the historic record from
Hawai's and what means is discussed in detail in Kennedy et al. 2012) have
not supported the idea that the Hawaiian islands were a
- 2 April 1996 - a single right whale was seen
off the western coast of Maui, Hawai'i (20° 56'N,
156° 46'W. The whale was estimated to be 13m in length.
As was the case in 1979, the right whale was interacting
with 3 humpback whales (Salden
& Mickelsen 1999). This same individual right
whale was photographically identified on July 30, 1996
in the Bering Sea, 4,111 km of the sighting in Hawai'i.
(Kennedy et al. 2012)
- 25 March and April 10 1979 one
animal was off seen off Hawai'i and the
sightings described in two reports by different
researchers (Rowntree et al. 1982, and Herman et al
1980).
Records prior to 1855
There was a small amount of whaling by native peoples
prior to the beginning of Yankee pelagic and coastal
operations in the mid-19th century. However, most native
tribes did not actively hunt whales, though they probably
made use of whales that stranded. The Makah tribe of the
Olympic Peninsula in Washington did actively whale from
shore, but archeological digs at the Ozette site reveal
that the catch consisted overwhelmingly of grey and
humpback whales. Right whales comprised only a tiny
percent of the bones found.
I have found no other records of right whales stranded
or living along these coasts prior to 185. The Spaniards
began inhabiting the California coast in 1769, and Russian
sea otter hunters ventured as far south as the Channel
Islands 1805. It seems likely that had there been coastal
concentrations of right whales, as occurs elsewhere in the
world, these would have been commented on or exploited.
Records 1855-1954
Pelagic whaling for right whales in the North Pacific did
not begin until 1835, only after the whalers had decimated
the populations of right whales in the North and South
Atlantic and South Pacific (e.g. Australia and New
Zealand). It picked up in intensity very rapidly then died
off even more rapidly after 1848 and the discovery of the
more valuable bowhead whale further north through the
Bering Straits. I have estimated that the total number of
North Pacific right whales removed by this fishery between
1840-49 was between 21,000-30,000 whales (see
Scarff, 2001 for details).
The first record of a right whale along the Pacific coast
south of Canada is from 1855. During the 100 years between
1855 and 1954, there are only 17 records of 22 total
whales along the California coast. Details of catches and
sightings from 1855-192 are described in Scarff (1986) at Table 4.
Since publication of Scarff (1986), I have learned of an
additional stranding of a right whale in Oceanside, San
Diego county, California (33o 12' N 117o
23' 29" W in February 1856 (Danil et al 2010
and the San Diego Herald,16 February 1856). The
whale "floated ashore at the mouth of San Luis Rey Valley.
Those who found it expected to obtain 600 gallons of oil
from its carcass."
I am unaware of any records for this period from
Washington, Oregon, or Baja California. Of these 17
records, there are only two strandings (Oceanside 1854 and
Channel Islands c.1916), two sightings (Monterey March
1855 and Carmel 1880), and the remaining 13 records are of
whales caught by the active coastal whaling operations
that targeting grey and humpback whales. Two sightings
(four whales total) occurred in the winter of 1879-1880,
and three sightings (five whales total) occurred in the
winter of 184-1885. There are only two records of right
whales between 1887-1954.
The coastal whaling operations in California came into
operation after the peak of pelagic whaling for right
whales was over. Their main prey were grey and humpback
whales. Many of the records of right whales during this
period correspond with the locations of coastal whaling
stations (e.g. Monterey/Carmel - 6 records; San Diego - 3
records). A complete description of all records of NPRWs
in the eastern North Pacific from 1900-1999 is available
on-line in Brownell et al 2001
Conservation Status of North Pacific Right Whales.
I argued in Scarff (1986) that the remarkably few
records of right whales during this period, and the almost
complete lack of strandings leads to the conclusion that
the coasts of Washington, Oregon, California, and Baja did
not constitute a wintering or calving ground for the
eastern population of right whales (contrary to the
accepted wisdom in the 1980s).
If you have any additional information or corrections to
the above material, please e-mail me at nprw4ever@gmail.com.
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